Snap. An immediate wave of dread fills my body as I feel my wrist slam into the pavement. Pop. I feel my knee twist as I collapse onto the green turf of the soccer field. Laying there, fighting blinding pain, I know. Before the x-rays, the surgeries, and the casts, I know that something is broken, and the road to recovery has already begun.
I am no stranger to injury. Two years ago, I broke my wrist in a skateboarding accident, and earlier this year, I tore two ligaments in my knee while playing soccer, both requiring surgery.
I don’t say this to make you pity me; instead, I say this to establish my own credibility as a reluctant expert in this topic, and because I hope that those of you reading who can, unfortunately, relate to me, will appreciate this article just a little more. I am also a swimmer, even though both injuries occurred while participating in other sports.
After my first injury, I almost immediately returned to competitive swimming, gradually working up to my previous ability and training level. Every practice, I felt like I was falling farther and farther behind my teammates, and because I still had limited arm movement, every stroke I took was ten times harder than it ever had been. Even things that I would have normally seen as an improvement before breaking my wrist, were reminders of how much longer I had to go to be where I once was. When I finally began competing again, my expectations were sky-high, and I only further disappointed myself. I didn’t allow myself the room to make mistakes and fail, which ended up hurting me more than breaking my wrist ever did.
Healing is not linear. In reality, healing isn’t really even quantifiable. As humans, we tend to gravitate toward the measurement of data to help us feel more in control of our lives by standardizing the world around us. If you really think about it, we quantify nearly everything, from watches on our wrists measuring our every step, to nutrition labels proclaiming every calorie down to the gram.
However, healing cannot be measured. All at once, healing is a setback and an accomplishment, an obstacle and a practice. When you get injured, you are almost never in control, and injuries look radically different for each person. There are days where you feel like you could lift the world, and there are days where you feel like you are being crushed underneath it. Allow yourself the room and the respect to realize that what you are going through is hard, and realize that while there will always be good and bad days, you are strong enough to weather them.
Though there will always be these ups and downs, the best piece of advice I can offer to combat any feelings of hopelessness is to never, ever compare yourself to others. Though cliche, it is the thief of joy for a reason. Because your healing journey isn’t linear, it is also incomparable. What works for someone will not work for you, and vice versa.
When you get injured, you have to change your perspective. What previously amounted to shaving tenths of a second off your best time, scoring a career high amount of points, or catching the winning pass now equates to bending your knee a few more degrees, walking without crutches, or lifting a five-pound weight above your head.
Though these achievements seem so trivial compared to our biggest sports accomplishments, they are quietly monumental. You have to celebrate the wins, no matter how small and insignificant they seem, because they truly are wins. You might not be scoring the most points, or crossing the finish line first, but you are recovering. You are healing. You are repairing, and that takes more strength than any buzzer-beater ever could.
Above all, the secret to overcoming an injury is to embrace it. Embrace the ups: the days where you can bend your leg a little further, lift a little more weight, or run a little longer. Embrace the downs: the days when you feel like you can’t get out of bed, the uncertainties about your return to activity, and the pain, both physical and mental. The cold truth of being injured is that no matter what you do, you cannot change the past. Literally the only way to heal from it is to go through it, no matter how much you may wish the opposite.
Finally, on the days where everything might seem like too much to bear, remember that you have made it through every single one of your hardest days. I am certain that you can make it through this one too.
